EAST LANSING, Mich. — Typically straight-faced Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio spoke with an especially hardened tone following his team’s third straight loss, a 31-14 home defeat to BYU (3-3) on Saturday.

Here’s what he had to say:

Opening statement: “I believe this program’s been built on a pretty solid foundation. It’s taken nine years to do that. It’s taken that long to get to where we’ve been. And the ride up the mountain’s very difficult at times, and that ride down sometimes is very quick.”

On responding to yet another loss: “The reality is that we’re a 2-3 football team. Should we handle ourselves with conviction? Those are the things we need to do to be able to turn this thing around.”

On fading as the game went on: “I want to congratulate BYU. They kept playing, and as the game continued to wear on, they seemed to get a little stronger, especially in the fourth quarter, with their ability to run the football.”

On struggles to get off the field on third down: “We have to go back. We have to look at things and evaluate what we did, who we did it with, how we did it, and we’ll ask ourselves, was it execution? What exactly did happen?”

On benching starting quarterback Tyler O’Connor: “The bottom line is production. At some point in time, you have to be productive. If you’re not productive and you’ve got seven points on the board, then you’ve got to make a change for the sake of change. I don’t think he was playing that badly. I really don’t. But we can’t take the sacks.”

On the quarterback situation: “I don’t want a quarterback controversy. Tyler’s done a great job leading. He’s been OK. He hasn’t been poor. But I felt like we needed to do something for the sake of change in that point in time.”